Setting the Record Straight on Pectra Testing w/Pari and Marius

On Ep. 86 of Infinite Jungle, Christine interviews Ethereum Foundation Developer Operations Engineer Parithosh Jayanthi and Ethereum Foundation Geth Developer Marius van der Wijden about the recent Holesky and Sepolia testnet upgrades. Both upgrades resulted in major hot fixes to Ethereum clients. Jayanthi and van der Wijden explain why these results are not out of the ordinary for Ethereum developers and what learnings have been gleaned from both testnet incidents. They also share their views on recent organizational changes to the Ethereum Foundation and their outlook on the state of Ethereum protocol development.

Guest:

Name: Parithosh Jayanthi

Title: Ethereum Foundation Developer Operations Engineer

X: https://x.com/parithosh_j

Name: Marius van der Wijden

Title: Ethereum Foundation Geth Developer

X: https://x.com/vdWijden

Show note links:

• Marius’ Sepolia Pectra fork incident recap (https://mariusvanderwijden.github.io/blog/2025/03/08/Sepolia/)
• Pectra audit competition (https://cantina.xyz/competitions/9ab19e33-b73c-4384-83a8-b905f508ce5e)

Timestamps:

(00:01:27) Resetting expectations for Pectra testing

(00:13:51) The need to reprioritize protocol hardening

(00:27:39) When will Pectra be ready for mainnet?

(00:32:24) Can Ethereum upgrade safely and faster?

(00:46:55) Views on the Ethereum Foundation

This episode was recorded on Friday, March 7, 2025.

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